On our way to Elterwater. Sabine and I got to the Lake District quite early, we arrived in Windermere at roughly 12:00 on a direct train from Manchester Oxford Road train station. The night before we spent a very pleasant evening in the house of Franziska and Andrew, who were very kind and hospitable. We even got to watch "The University Challenge"! When we got to Winderemere it was rainy and cool and there were loads of people around. Seeing Sabine had never walked long stretches with a rucksack before we decided to start slowly, walking only from Ambleside to Elterwater. So we hopped on the bus to Ambleside and started our short 8km walk there. Ambleside is very touristy and very busy and also very pretty.